Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Work Out Woes

So you may remember my new year's resolution to get in the habit of working out. I challenged myself to do Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred dvd workout every day for the month of January except my birthday weekend, the 15th, because a) it was my birthday and b) it was Create Your Own Coming Of Homies 2011 (aka, the fab four friends back together again for the first time in a loooong time + Roo's fiance!). I was very successful with this challenge during January and would have made it if I hadn't gotten sick at the end of the month.

Now, I am very motivated by stickers. I chalk it up to the 12 years of piano lessons I had growing up. Silly or not, they are a very happy, physical reminder of when I do well. So I use stickers to mark on the calendar when I work out. They even have little motivational phrases on them. Aw, cute.

So here was January's calendar page:

I win. Well, close enough. Keep in mind that I began tax season overtime on Monday, January 24th at 48 hours for that week, then kicked it up to the required 55 the following Monday, the 31st.

So, here is February:

Noooooot so much of a winner....though not terribly terrible either if you average it out?? Ok, I stunk at it. But wait. Here's March thus far:FAIL! That is a very sad, lonely little sticker.

I blame tax season. My cube neighbor Angie is working on eating healthy and exercising right now too and we agreed the other day that tax season is not the ideal time to try to lose weight. It falls right after the holiday splurge and right after new year's resolutions, but also smack dab on top of the busiest and most tiring three-ish months of our year as tax accountants. It is reeeally hard to make myself work out after working 6:30 am to 6:30 pm. Nevertheless, we are persevering, at least with the eating healthy part. I am doing awesome on that. I use www.myfitnesspal.com to track calories, exercise and weight and it is set up like facebook so you can add friends to motivate, encourage or scold you. The food database is very thorough. It has an app for iphone and droid and it's all free! Check it out. Despite how lonely that one sticker is getting on the March calendar, I have lost about 9 pounds since the beginning of the year and my sweet grandmother told me this past weekend "Anna, something is agreeing with you. You look slim and your complexion looks great." Go me!